


Before I'm Dead

by quackers



Series: Heartbeat [2]
Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Vampire, An excuse to make Shane speak Polish, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Biting, Blood Drinking, F/M, M/M, Pain, Period-Typical Racism, Tropes, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-05-19 15:24:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19359676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quackers/pseuds/quackers
Summary: "He was not a monster because Ryan was not a monster. It was as simple as that."A series of unconnected chapters that are more or less in chronological order, set directly after Heartbeat.(Reading Heartbeat first is recommended.)





	1. All I Dread

**Author's Note:**

> This won't make much sense if you haven't read Heartbeat, but you do you! I'm a sign, not a cop.

A strangled gasp.

Silence that echoed amongst the beeps and whirs of the medical machines.

Silence made all the more terrifying by the healthy rhythms of the doctor and nurse's bodies.

Silence.

Shane closed his eyes.

…

 _Thump_.

 _Thump_.

The slow, methodic thump of a vampire’s heartbeat.

Slowly, gently, Shane wrapped both of his hands around one of Ryan’s, then bent down to rest his head on the edge of the bed.

He inhaled in a long, controlled gasp, dimly aware that he hadn’t breathed once for the past twenty minutes. His focus on Ryan's struggling heartbeat had been so great that he had completely forgotten to breathe and he chided himself out of habit. Not breathing was one of the quickest ways to be discovered. Keeping the routines of a living body was paramount for going undetected.

A little voice in his head that sounded distinctly like Ryan told him he didn't have to hide anymore. That he wasn't dead.

Ryan.

God.

Ryan had _survived_.

Ryan was like him now.

It still hadn't really hit him. Shane knew it would take some time for him to fully appreciate the fact that Ryan could be with him until the end of his days if they both still chose. His guilt was already an overwhelming emotion that threatened to reduce him to a bare shell of a man, but he did his best to ignore it. Continually reminding himself that Ryan had _chosen_ this, that he had given Ryan an out every step of the way helped.

The knowledge that Ryan would tell him to stop channeling every vampire from a YA novel also helped.

Each slow beat of Ryan’s heart made Shane relax a little more, a lullaby that he could have fallen asleep to.

God, he had been so afraid. So certain he was condemning Ryan to death when he put his open wrist against Ryan’s lips.

But it had been so peaceful. So very different from his rebirth. Ryan had made a pained face a few times while unconscious. He had whimpered once or twice. But that had been it. There had been no screaming, no pleading, no begging.

Nothing like what happened with him.

 

\----------------------

 

 

“Wake up, cieniasie. We’re here.”

Shane opened one eye, but didn’t move from his spot on the wagon’s bench. “I wasn’t asleep. I was praying.”

“Not even mama believes you when you say that,” Scott replied easily as he hopped off the wagon and moved around to the back. “Unless prayer can move these barrels, get off your ass and be useful.”

“Believe and the Good Lord shall provide,” Shane said with overwrought sincerity. The warmth of the late afternoon sun soaked into his skin, tempting him to stay where he was. But his brother would have no problem with pulling him off the bench or throwing something at his head, so he sighed wearily and hopped down as well.

Falling into the routine they had developed after hundreds of deliveries, he left Scott to unhooking the tailboard and walked to the back door of the tavern. He shouted, “Hello the house,” as he knocked on the door, then opened it and ducked through the short opening with the ease of long practice. It was an idle dream of his that one day he would build a house with tall enough doorways.

The woman standing in front of the large cast iron stove looked up at his entrance, her dress and apron covered in great swathes of flour and unknown food stains. She frowned at him, though it wasn’t an unfriendly expression. “You’re late.”

“Sun is up still,” Shane replied with a cheeky smile that got him an exasperated shake of the head.

Anne Goodrich, wife to the tavern owner and one of their best customers, shut the largest door of the stove with her hip and bustled over to the kitchen’s other door. When she pushed it open, Shane could hear the murmur of a handful of voices drift through the opening. “George!” Anne yelled. “The cooper’s boys are here.”

Shane wandered further into the kitchen, eyeing the sweetmeats that had been set aside on a large, slab-planked table. Before he could try to grab one, Anne made a tutting noise and shook her finger at him. “You’re not a growing boy anymore, Shane. Act your age.”

“Aren’t you the one that had told me all men are boys with beards?”

Anne chuckled and made a flapping motion at him. “Go help your brother, you layabout. When you’re done and my good-for-nothing husband has paid you, maybe we’ll see about letting you have a treat.”

Grumbling good naturedly, Shane turned around and went back outside. It was only three barrels and his brother didn’t exactly need the assistance, but he helped to heft one down from the wagon, stacking it on top of the others. They chatted idly, though it was mostly Scott complaining about the cost of the wood he needed to make repairs to his house. Since Shane heard the same complaints about rising wood prices from their father every other day, he let the words wash past him.

Maybe if he had known it would be the last real conversation with his brother he would ever have, he would have paid more attention.

George came out and paid them, slapping them on the back and entreating them to come eat and drink at half the price. Since that had been their exact plan, they agreed readily. Shane took upon himself the burden of driving the cart and horses off to the side of the inn’s barn and finding a couple of feed bags for the horses. It meant that by the time he made it back inside, his brother had already found a couple of friends and was embroiled in a card game.

Which was exactly what Shane had wanted. Sometimes being the jolly and carefree younger son was draining. For tonight, he wanted to enjoy his dinner and drinks in peace.

Well, he reflected wryly as Anne bustled up to him with a trencher of stew and bread, relative peace.

“Don’t sit off in the corner like you always do before you’ve gotten into your cups, young man,” Anne said as she handed everything to him. “I want to bend your ear a little.”

Shane sighed but smiled and nodded, turning on his heel to grab a seat at the bar, where Anne could more easily find him.

He nearly tripped over a woman he had never seen before.

Big, lustrous sable eyes stared up at him, and he was caught, for one moment, in the cupid’s bow of her perfectly formed mouth.

Then common sense returned and he rushed to apologize, but she just smiled absently and stepped gracefully around him.

Feeling like a bumbling schoolboy caught trying and failing to recite his letters in front of a pretty girl, Shane hastily walked away. The tips of his ears were burning and he actually marveled at the feeling.

A woman hadn’t made him feel that awkward and boyish in over a year. And he had barely gotten a single look at her. He hadn’t even heard her voice!

It was pleasant to know that he could still be affected like that.

But a pretty little thing like her wouldn’t be interested in him. So he pushed his instant admiration away and sat at the bar to eat. There weren’t many people there yet, as the factories had yet to let out, and he chewed through the hard bread methodically. He let his thoughts drift, ignoring the sounds around him.

Two years ago, on a day much like today, he had met Connie.

Sometimes he wished he hadn’t. He was a widower before he had even been married, and he thought that fact would mar the rest of his life.

After he had made his way through most of the food, Anne sat down next to him with a weary sigh, interrupting his downward spiral of thoughts as she handed him one of the promised tarts. She brushed hair out of her face that had fallen from her bun and heaved another long sigh. “I’m getting too old for all this work.”

“Hire another girl,” Shane suggested, knowing full well that his advice wouldn’t be listened to.

Sure enough, Anne tutted and pulled a drink from the mug she had brought with her. “Can’t trust none of these girls comin’ into the city nowadays. Lazy, the lot of them.”

Shane carefully hid his smile at her bluster. She complained, but Anne had hired more than one girl that was down on their luck over the years.

“All they want is to find a man and they think that will happen while serving beer here,” she continued and Shane took the opportunity to let his gaze wander as he picked up the tart and bit into it. He liked Anne, but she could talk up a storm once she got going.

The strange woman was sitting at a table by herself, sipping at a chicken soup that Shane knew only went to a few that Anne or George deemed worthy.

“When are you thinking about marriage? You’re not getting any younger.”

Shane couldn’t entirely hide the way his body went still, but he did his best to dredge up a smile. “No woman could compare to you, Mrs. Goodrich.” He put the tart down, no longer feeling hungry and hoping she would drop the subject.

Anne sighed at him, ignoring his pathetic attempt at normalcy. “It’s been over a year, Shane. Connie would want you to move on. You only knew the poor girl for a short time, anyways.”

Shane didn’t bother saying that she didn’t know what Connie would have wanted. No one knew because Connie was _dead_ and no one could ask a body rotting six feet under what it wanted. He merely nodded, turning his head to watch the dark-haired woman as she engaged Anne’s husband in conversation.

Sighing again, Anne patted his hand, muttered something about stubborn, romantic fools, and went off to harangue one of the servers for spilling beer.

The small woman at the bar looked out of place in the tavern. Her black hair had been drawn back in two braids and there was beadwork on her shawl that Shane had only seen done by some of the natives when they came into town to trade. But she was far paler than any Indian he had ever seen. Her skin was ashy and almost blue in complexion. Her dress was well-made, the kind of thing that Scott’s wife would have only worn on Sunday, and yet her leather boots were sturdy and showed obvious signs of wear.

Short, black-haired, and a delicate, pretty face. The opposite of tall, strong-featured Connie and her wheat-colored hair.

He thought, for one moment, of walking over and striking up a conversation.

In the end, he turned away and to drink his ale, letting his thoughts fall into a fog. Anne continued to refill his tankard, her pity a physical weight that Shane willfully ignored.

The night would have ended with him being drug home by his brother if a cluster of dirty, grease-stained factory workers hadn’t taken up the seats next to him. It only took a handful of minutes for them to notice the pretty girl that obviously wasn’t a local to their little cluster of city blocks. The jokes started instantly, the kind of lowbrow, bawdy humor that his mama would have washed their mouths out for. The men were quiet enough, but Shane couldn’t help but notice how the woman tilted her head towards them, her mouth thinning into a straight line.

“Lay off, why don’t you?” he muttered into his drink, just barely loud enough for the man next to him to hear. “‘s no way to talk about a lady.”

“What, you got a problem with how we’re talking?”

Shane turned his head just enough to make out the gruff, thick-set man. Red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes glared back at him over a scraggly, unkempt beard.

Two years ago, he would have made a joke. Or if he was drunk enough, gotten Anne’s husband to make the men leave.

Two years ago, he didn’t have a dead fiance.

Draining the rest of his drink in one swallow, Shane stood and walked away without a backward glance, ignoring the jeers and laughs of the group.

He jerked his head at his brother in something of a nod as he passed the poker game and waved in the vague direction of their parents’ home. Scott nodded back and returned his attention to his cards.

This wasn’t the first time Shane had walked home. Ever since his brother had gotten married, it had begun to happen more often. Asking for a ride didn’t make sense when his brother lived in the opposite direction of his parents. And he liked the atmosphere of the city at night. The torches and candles, the glow from the factories. The shouts and music from the taverns he passed and the greetings from his family’s customers.

He felt less alone in those times.

“I heard what you said.”

Shane startled and whirled around, shocked to find the strange, tiny woman from the inn walking next to him. She smiled, a quick closemouthed grin of amusement that was unfairly dazzling, before her features smoothed into something more polite. “Good evening, sir,” she added.

“Good evening,” he returned automatically. “I beg your pardon, ma’am, but what do you mean? You heard what I said?”

“To those men.” She paused, then slid a glance towards him. She looked genteely confused. “Most men that leap to my defense make certain to do so in as brash and loud a manner as possible, so they’ll know I was a witness to their stalwart manliness. You never talked to me. Why?”

Shane blinked a few times, trying to parse together the words. She spoke in a smooth but oddly stilted manner, as if she had gone to a finishing school. Not that he was fool enough to remark upon her way of speaking. “Ah, I didn’t want to cause a ruckus, ma’am. Anne would kick me out and I would simply _perish_ if I could never taste one of her tarts again.”

A startled laugh rang from the woman’s lips, a sound that was nearly ugly in its open brashness. Oddly, it made her more beautiful. “So it wasn’t because you’re shy. It was because you feared the wrath of the proprietress.”

“No one has ever called me shy a day in my life.”

“Hmm, I would wager that’s true,” she said. “May I ask your name?”

“Shane Madej, ma’am.”

“Mary,” she offered simply. Before he could feel too odd that a beautiful woman would offer only her first name, she turned her wide brown eyes up at him. “Would you be a gentleman and walk me back to my lodgings?”

Her perfect mouth drew into a close-lipped smirk, one eyebrow going up in a saucy little expression that made several conclusions jump to the front of Shane’s mind.

Ah, she was one of _those_ women. Surprising, considering her manner of speaking and the expensive material of her dress, but fortune was a fickle mistress. Chicago saw more than it’s fair share of the formerly rich, down on their luck.

What she was doing with him was another mystery. Clearly she wasn’t expecting money from him, since he was certain the state of his clothing alone would tell her that he didn’t have a surfeit of riches. And he nearly refused on principle. Not because he had a problem with women that had to make their living in such ways, but because Connie was still a sore on his soul. He didn’t want to ruin her memory with a woman of the night.

But this Mary was _tiny_. It made Shane uncomfortable to think of such a beautiful, delicate young woman walking alone at night through a neighborhood dotted with factories and factory workers. Some of whom were no better than pigs. He wasn’t looking for a fight, but he knew his height and the muscles he’d gained from working with his father made him appear far more intimidating than he actually was.

It wouldn’t hurt to walk with her, just until he was sure she was delivered safely to her lodgings.

He offered her his arm in answer and she daintily accepted it, her fingertips a gentle weight on the crook of his elbow. They talked about nothing consequential as they ambled down the roads. Shane was proud of how often he made her laugh, and he could tell it was a genuine laugh, too. A woman who dressed so well and spoke so precisely would not laugh so brazenly in polite company.

By the time they made it to the building she was staying at, he was beginning to rethink his stance. It had been quite some time since he had last indulged. Since before Connie and her eager fumblings.

Mary paused, her lips pursed as she looked at the boarding house, most of its windows filled with candlelight. “I don’t think I will ever get used to how this city never sleeps. This much humanity is a blessing and a curse.”

Shane couldn’t exactly disagree. He had grown up with the noise and never-ending bustle of Chicago, but there were times when he thought he would do unspeakable things for some genuine peace and quiet. “And where are you from, if you still find it bothersome?”

“Kaskaskia,” Mary said evenly. When he blinked down at her, her smile became somewhat amused in a tired way. “Being neither from there, nor French or Indian, I am not surprised you have not heard of it. And you? Were you born here?”

He started to answer truthfully, but a little imp of perversion urged him to respond in kind.

“Bolesławiec,” Shane said, naming his parent’s village. “I’m not surprised you haven't heard of it, since you’re American,” he added drily when she stared at him.

Her brows drew together as her eyes narrowed. He wondered if he had mistepped and misread her sense of humor, when she suddenly laughed and shook her head. “A point, sir. You have scored a point.”

Shane smiled, relieved. “That was where my parents were from. I was indeed born here,” he admitted. “But-”

“But I was being difficult when you were merely attempting to be polite,” she finished for him.

“I don’t know that I would say that,” he hedged.

Mary smiled at him, exasperated and amused. “That’s fine, because I was the one to say it.

There a beat of silence while Shane scrambled for something to say, suddenly desperate to keep the conversation going. Somewhere along the way, he had begun to doubt his original conclusion that she was a woman for hire and was starting to think that maybe she really did find him interesting. She had yet to insinuate a single thing about his finances or to ask him in a bold, crass way what he wanted to do to her, like he had been expecting.

It was a flattering idea that such a beautiful, clever, and well-spoken woman might find actual favor in him. It was rather unfortunate that the thought of her liking him sent his usual wit begging. What he came up with was, “You’re, ah, Indian?”

“My mother,” she said with the air of someone who has had to say it a hundred times before. “My father was a French trader.”

Shane tilted his head, at first confused because there weren’t many French traders left in the area. Possibly none. Illinois had been claimed by the States for quite some time. Then he realized her tone and put his free hand up in a placating gesture, feeling like a heel. “I’m sorry, ma’am, you don’t have to answer. It’s none of my business.”

“You’re right. I don’t and it’s not.”

He couldn’t help it. Shane grinned, delighted at such a strong response from such a tiny woman. Connie had been forthright and proud as well. He had always been far more enamored with women that allowed their personality and opinions to shine than the shy, retiring nature of ‘proper’ women.

“Now, will you escort me to my room or will you take your leave here?”

“I-” Shane stuttered over his words, abruptly nervous in a way he hadn’t been in years. It wasn’t like this was the first time he had been invited into a woman’s bed, but to have it said so bluntly, with only the thinnest veneer of subtlety to hide what she was asking, in such a crisp, upper-class way, was every amount of shocking. Yes, he had overheard plenty of drunken women offer themselves to their current beau, but something about the regal self assuredness of Mary made him feel every inch the poor, cooper’s son that he was.

Mary raised one fine, well-shaped eyebrow. “I didn’t take you for inexperienced.”

Shane flushed, his mouth open to defend himself, when he caught the spark of humor in her eyes and the way her lips twitched in a smile. “You are a menace,” he declared, making his decision.

“Perhaps,” she demurred.

Glancing up at the building Mary had led him to, Shane tilted his head towards an alleyway. “Mrs. Florescu owns this boarding house. Perhaps it would be best if we went in through the side door.”

“I’m aware of her strict policies,” Mary said with the same close-lipped smirk. “The previous tenant of my room was turned out because she allowed a gentleman caller to wait in the study while she retrieved her hat.”

“That does sound like the good Mrs. Florescu.”

Mary laughed softly, a quiet breathy sound that Shane ached to hear again. She led the way with some confidence, making it clear she had done so before. He wondered how many men she brought back to her room, but the thought did not bother him. There was something freeing about her forthright attitude and the understanding that this was a one night affair. Shane knew that his heart was not ready for emotional attachments, but his body and mind were more than ready for a pleasant diversion.

It was easier than it should have been to sneak up the back stairs and into the third floor, but Mary seemed to have an uncanny ability to know when someone was walking down the hallways, hearing footsteps or voices well before Shane could. He didn’t pay much attention to that, though. His thoughts were on the coldness of her hand in his and he wondered if she would welcome a pair of gloves.

The rush to her door and the fumbling as she tried to unlock it made both of them giggle, Shane slapping his hand over his mouth as he ducked through the door. He turned towards Mary as she relocked the door behind them, grinning and about to make some sort of ribald joke, when she was suddenly in his space, her perfect mouth suckling gently on the skin under his jaw.

Her skirts pressed and swayed into his legs and he realized that she had to stand on her toes to reach even just his jaw, and he felt all of the breath leave him in a long sigh. He gently wrapped his hands around her, inching his way to the buttons along her spine.

His coat was slipped off his shoulders and he released her trim waist just long enough to let it drop to the floor. Immediately his hands went back to her body as he marveled at the way her teeth scraped along his stubble.

Good Lord, she was talented with her mouth. Mary did something wicked with her tongue and Shane knew there would be a mark on his neck but that knowledge meant little. With what dexterity he could muster, he started to undo the small buttons at the back of her neck.

Mary made an annoyed noise and pulled back. He took the opportunity to duck down, trying to kiss her. She allowed his lips to press against her, but when he teased at the opening of her mouth with his tongue, she turned her head.

Shane was confused by her reaction, but before he could really think about it, she was pushing him backwards until the back of his knees hit the edge of the sturdy bed. He fell with a thump, watching wide-eyed as she went to her knees in a graceful flare of her skirt.

“Someone’s eager,” was out of his mouth before he could stop himself and he cursed himself for a fool.

She just rolled her eyes, which made Shane laugh. Mary really was something and under the arousal was a hopeful thought that she would remain in the area. He already knew he would want to see her again.

Mary made short work of his pants, reaching for him without pause. The lack of hesitation was the best kind of surprise, followed quickly by the even better surprise of her swallowing his entire length without a problem. He had never been with a woman who could do that and it was embarrassing how quickly that proved to be his undoing.

He removed his knuckles from where he had been biting down on them to muffle his surprised whimpers and quietly gasped, “This is going to be over very quickly if you don’t stop.”

Judging by the way her eyes narrowed, Mary was seriously contemplating finishing him like that, and he found that he didn’t hate the thought of spending down her throat. Before that became an imminent fate, she pulled off of him with a noise that would haunt his dreams and came to her feet to perch on the edge of the bed.

Shane hastily sat up to unlace his boots, finding himself forced to toe them off when Mary pushed him upright and went back to sucking a mark under his jaw. Her dainty fingers were small but sure as they wrapped around his length, bringing him back to the edge with alarming quickness.

“If you want me to take care of you,” he managed to murmur, his hand cradling the back of her head, “You’ll need to slow down.”

He could feel her smile against his throat. “Such a gentleman,” she whispered, the words blowing cold across his spit-slicked skin.

His attempt to answer was stopped by her doing something sinful with a twist of her fingers that made him close his eyes and groan.

It snuck up on him, his sudden release. He could do nothing to stop it and merely held back any louder noises, shuddering as the pleasure rolled over him. Shane didn’t mean to slump into Mary, but she took his weight without complaint, still working at his neck in a way that was beginning to hurt. A pinch of his flesh made him flinch, though he didn’t begrudge her her fun.

“Mary,” he said gently, once he was able to once again form words. “Let me return the favor-”

He heard a swallow.

Filtering through the lassitude was the feeling of a strange pulling sensation, centered at his neck, right where Mary’s mouth was. Her cold, _cold_ hand left his length to caress the side of his face.

It came to him that she hadn't let him kiss her. That she had heard the whispering men at the bar and the footsteps of her neighbors as they snuck into her room. That she still hadn’t stopped sucking at the join of his shoulder.

A horrible suspicion began to grow in the pit of his stomach.

“Mary-” he said again, trying to pull away.

The faintest inhuman growl rumbled from the small form pressed against him.

Shane panicked. Prey instincts told him to run, to get out. He came to his feet, in a movement that took her by surprise, her mouth torn from his shoulder in a flare of ragged pain. Stumbling over his loose pants, Shane turned in time to see a face that was a wash of deep red blood and two wickedly pointed fangs.

“Vampire.”

She stared up at him, blood dripping from her perfect mouth.

“You’re a vampire,” Shane said dumbly, his voice rising and breaking on the word. He took a step backwards, then another. He started to shout, “Vam-”

He didn’t see her move. Suddenly there was a weight on his back, unnaturally strong arms wrapping around his shoulders and pulling him down. Struggling like a yearling brought to slaughter, Shane tried to yell again, but a hand was jammed against his mouth.

For decades after, Shane would curse himself for the heat-of-the-moment decision that damned his life.

But there was no thought.

There was no decision.

It was instinct, pure and simple, that made him bite down as hard as he could on the meat of Mary’s thumb.

Something metallic and fluid coated Shane’s tongue.

Mary made a surprised noise and ripped her hand away, her weight falling from his back. The sudden change made him tumble forward, swallowing the taste of the rich, salty liquid to stop himself from choking, and God, if only he had spit it out instead.

Shane took the opportunity while he had it and ran. He didn’t look back once as he forced the weak lock open in his haste to escape, gathering his pants in one hand and flying down the hall and the three flights of stairs.

He stumbled into the night, his stockinged feet slipping on the bare cobblestones of the street. His breath steamed in the air, wisping away on the wind and the thin linen shirt that was all he had been wearing under his coat was no barrier against the night air. He tried to shout, but his throat felt dry and his tongue too thick. All he could do was moan in fear.

The metallic flavor of the monster’s blood lingered in his mouth.

A scrape echoed behind him, the tiny footsteps of a small woman in sturdy leather boots.

Horror that he was being followed made him pick up his pace, fear coursing hot through him as he made legs run that felt as shaky as a newborn colt’s.

Something was wrong. He was no athlete, but he worked hard for his father. Even with the blood dripping down his neck and the terror that was making him shake, he shouldn’t have been so weak. What had she done to him? What cursed magic was at play?

The side door of a hostler’ barn was barely propped open and he ducked into it, knowing he needed to hide, as no one successfully outran a hunting vampire. He hoped against hope, praying hard that the creature out there hadn’t seen him. That she hadn’t actually been following him.

He tripped over his own feet, falling into muddy straw. Horses whickered softly at him, confused to be awoken so late at night. He tried to push himself back upright, but his arms shook too hard to support him.

 _Pain_ rippled through his entire body, hot spasms and flashes of agony that seemed to be centered on his very heart. Shane curled into himself, gasping with each new wave of pain.

Dimly, through his own tortured mewling, he heard the door scrape shut, and he forced open his clenched eyes to see Mary staring at him. His blood no longer stained her face, but her shawl was wrapped tightly around her shoulders, hiding where it had marred her dress.

“I didn’t take enough.”

Shane shook his head weakly. He wanted to get to his feet, to try and continue running, but the fire that lined his every muscle and burned through every vein rendered him useless.

The monster picked her way daintily through the dirtied straw, her skirts drawn up to keep them clean. She sat primly on a barrel, tucking her ankles together and watching him calmly, as if he wasn’t prostrate before her, whimpering in agony. “Your body is replacing the old with the new. But you have too much blood left. And you didn’t swallow enough of mine. You will probably die soon. I can make it quicker. Spare both of us the indignity of your drawn out death.”

Death.

The end of his life.

He would die like Connie had, crying and choking on his own blood. Nothing more than a cooper’s son.

Shane realized with a kind of pain-induced clarity that she was sitting on a barrel of his father’s making and he gasped a weak laugh, blood bubbling up to pour over his lips. He had always feared he would die next to barrels and tools, but he hadn’t thought it would be so literal.

Merciful God, he didn’t want to die.

With strength he dredged up from a stubborn corner of his very being, he grasped Mary’s leg. Even in work boots, her slim ankle was dwarfed by his hand. To his great surprise, she didn’t kick him off. “Please,” he rasped. Delirium and weakness made the words waver and dance in his mind, despite how desperate he was to get them out. “Proszę. I don’t want to die. Błagam, Boże, nie chcę umierać. Anything. _Anything_.”

In that moment, he didn’t care about his eternal soul or the damnation he was courting. Hell might await him but his time on Earth couldn’t be over. Not yet. Not now. He didn’t want it to be over. _He didn’t want to die_.

Her stoic expression flickered, anguish making her beautiful. She was a tortured angel. A divine monster sent to tempt him and oh, how he had fallen to that temptation.

The whisper from her lips was so soft he almost didn’t hear it. “Don’t ask this of me.”

It felt like something in his core ripped, a pain spearing through his chest that made him double over, his hand going slack and falling off Mary’s leg. Despite the pain, despite the fear drumming through him and the knowledge that passing out would mean death, it was hard to stay conscious. His eyelids felt heavier than iron, his skull heavier than an anvil. It took all of his remaining strength to twist his head to look up at her. “Please,” he pleaded, his vision swimming in tears. “Please, I don’t want to die.”

She looked away.

His eyelids fell. Everything was dark.

Despair washed over him, forcing more bloody tears from eyes that burned.

Dimly, from a great distance, he heard a sigh. Rustling.

Something wet and cold was placed against his lips.

“Drink now and _maybe_ you will survive. I am certain we will both regret if you do.”

The will to live, to keep his life, no matter the form it would take, was stronger than any pain or exhaustion.

He swallowed.

His heart… stopped.

The world became fire.

 

\-----------

 

Ryan’s fingers twitched in his hold, breaking Shane out of his reverie. A few of the monitors that he didn’t entirely understand beeped faster.

Any minute now and Ryan would wake up. With any luck, he wouldn’t remember the pain he had been mostly unconscious for.

Ryan’s change from human to monster- No.

No. Ryan could never be a monster.

Shane tightened his grip on Ryan’s hand, once again telling himself that he wasn’t a monster. He wasn’t damned. It was a virus. A virus that science couldn’t entirely explain yet, but it was only a matter of time. Magic and religion had nothing to do with it.

He had repeated this mantra to himself this for decades. For the first time in his long life, he thought he actually believed it. He was not a monster because Ryan was not a monster. It was as simple as that. It had to be. For both their sakes.

Shane sat up, letting go with one hand so he could lay it on top of Ryan’s head. The hair under his fingertips was soft and product-free, silky as he gently stroked it.

Ryan mumbled something, scrunching his nose, and Shane thought his poor, dead heart was going to implode.

“Hey,” he whispered, ignoring the wavering catch in his voice. “You can’t sleep your immortality away.”

With a cute little frown, Ryan twisted his head and mumbled something else that sounded distinctly grouchy.

It was all so different from how he had woken up.

There had been no real fear. No screaming, no begging. No agonizing transition from human to vampire. Ryan’s body had succumbed to the disease willingly.

After a few seconds, Ryan seemed to give in to the inevitable and opened his eyes a bare fraction. He made a questioning noise when he registered Shane.

“You think you can sit up?”

Ryan grumbled in a way that made it clear he didn’t want to but sat up without assistance. The movement drew the doctor’s attention, and she slowly walked over, keeping well out of arm’s reach. She managed to do it without looking like she was leery of Shane, which was impressive.

Shane wanted to tell her that he was fine and he wasn’t going to go mama bear on her for approaching Ryan, but the shameful reality was that it had taken a surprising amount of willpower not to growl at her when she had stepped closer.

 _Not a monster. I'm not a monster_.

“Ryan,” the doctor said softly, making him look up. Shane appreciated that she was being so quiet. He vaguely remembered how loud everything had seemed when he had first turned. “How do you feel?”

Ryan squinted at her, obviously out of it. He grimaced and slowly brought his hand up to rub at his face. “Everything is sore.”

His words lisped audibly.

Shane could see the moment realization dawned.

Despite the comfort of logic, despite knowing that Ryan had asked for this every step of the way, Shane braced himself for Ryan's anger and fear. For the inevitable blame.

He had quietly made preparations, just in case. Just in case Ryan wanted nothing more to do with him after this.

No matter what happened, he wouldn't abandon Ryan. He was not Mary. He wouldn't disappear and force Ryan to face the world alone, to stumble through learning about his new existence. But he would remove himself from as much of Ryan's life as he could if that was what would be needed.

Ryan ran his tongue over his teeth, his eyes going wide. There was a pause, a long moment that stretched unbearably. Then he turned towards Shane and grinned; happy, excited, and a little bit dopey. Four small but sharp fangs graced his smile. “Holy shit! It worked!”

Shane couldn't look away. He knew he should make a joke, should say something to keep the situation light. But he couldn't make himself speak.

Relief, pride, and love twisted in him, making his fingers shake and his throat feel oddly tight.

Ryan's expression slowly fell. “Shane?”

Ignoring the doctor and the nurse, ignoring the IVs and tangle of lines connected to Ryan, Shane gently cupped his face in both hands. The skin under his fingers was already cooler than a human’s would be. He mourned the lost warmth as much as he rejoiced in it. He kissed Ryan like he was a precious gift.

“Shane?” Ryan asked again, though it verged on a laugh this time. The shape of his fangs could just barely be felt through the flesh of his lip. Shane nearly embarrassed both of them right then and there by crying.

He wasn’t alone anymore. Even if Ryan left him at that exact moment, Shane knew he wasn’t alone. Not anymore.

“Perfect,” he breathed softly against Ryan's mouth. He reveled in the knowledge that Ryan would be able to hear it. “You're absolutely perfect.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Proszę: Please  
> Błagam, Boże, nie chcę umierać: Please, God, I don't want to die.
> 
> Thank you, Emilia, for translating and for not questioning me when I asked for this specific phrase. :D
> 
> I hope everyone enjoyed this incredibly AU backstory! More blood, angst, and vampire tropes will be coming in the next couple of months 
> 
> Thank you for your continued interest in the world of Heartbeat! <3
> 
> Come yell at me at [Mephsation!](https://mephsation.tumblr.com/)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, read the tags! <3

Blood had a sound.

That little fact had come as something of a surprise.

It wasn’t just the pumping of the heart, the steady pound that made him trip over his own feet if he let it distract him. It was also the rush of blood through the veins, a sound like a stream of water, barely heard under the gurgles of the stomach and the working of the lungs.

He only picked up on it when he was focused. When he let the blue tint of a vein under pale skin consume his thoughts.

When all he could think about was how it would taste; that fresh, hot, living blood.

How it would look against dark curls and staining a bright white shirt.

“I feel like I should be covering my boobs, but I don’t think that’s what you’re looking at.”

Sara’s louder than normal voice startled him, and Ryan jerked his gaze up from her throat. She was giving him an amused, if exasperated look, and Ryan abruptly wished vampires really could turn into bats, because flying away from this situation would be incredibly handy. “Fuck, I am so sorry,” he said, bringing his hands up to cover his face. He could just feel how Shane was holding back from laughing at him.

“I thought by your age you would have learned how to do that quick glance men do. The one that lets them look at your boobs without being noticeable about it.”

Ryan sunk down in his seat, groaning. He could tell Sara wasn’t upset, thank God, but he admittedly did feel like he was twelve and had gotten caught trying to sneak a peek.

“He’s a baby by vampire standards,” Shane said, humor so obvious that he might as well have given up and laughed out loud. “You gotta give him a couple years.”

Sara leaned her elbow on the table, supporting her head as she archly asked Shane, “So you’re old and mature and know better?”

Shane winked cheerfully, his grin wide enough to show off a hint of a fang. He’d been doing that more lately. Ever since Ryan had turned. Ryan wasn’t sure if the guy was doing it as a show of support or if he really did feel more comfortable with flashing fang, but the gesture was appreciated either way. “I’m the most mature vampire you’ll ever meet!”

Ryan snorted and Sara laughed, the two of them meeting eyes in mutual understanding over the ridiculous of that statement. Just like that, Ryan relaxed, secure in the knowledge that he hadn't made things awkward between them.

It was a pleasant lunch and Ryan reveled in being outside with a friend again. While he had been adjusting to being a completely new species, Sara and quite a few others had visited him in his self-imposed exile in Shane’s apartment. But even with the occasional visit, sitting inside the same couple of rooms had been driving him stir crazy. He had been in desperate need to do something fun. This was the first time he had done anything social in public without Shane practically glued to his side. Shane was even sitting on the other side of the table, giving him the space that he had been missing. He loved the man, but having a hand on his shoulder or back every time he took a step outside was aggravating.

Not that he really blamed Shane. The first couple of weeks of hunger had been intense.

Ryan felt great as they returned to Shane’s apartment, babbling on about the movie he wanted to see that weekend. Preferably more than one, since he had missed a few in the last couple of months.

“I didn’t see his last film, but the director’s done some great stuff in the past,” Ryan said as Shane unlocked the door, slipping past him with the ease of long practice. “And the trailer looked so fuckin’ kickass, dude. Props to the team that produced it, even if the movie sucks, y’know?”

He toed his shoes off and wandered towards the kitchen, thinking about the blood in the fridge but telling himself he was going to drink some cold water instead. His throat felt dry and scratchy. Liquid sounded like a good idea. “Do you think it being PG-13 will ruin the horror of it or will that just make it more of a mind trip? Get Out did a good job with-”

“You need to bite someone.”

“-the eeriness without resorting to pure jumpscares and blood and guts,” Ryan continued grimly. He pointedly ignored Shane as he put ice in a glass, wincing at the high-pitched squeal of the cubes clinking together. Vampiric hearing was so much more of a curse than it was a blessing. “We should watch Get Out again.”

“Ryan-”

“Shane,” Ryan interrupted, focused on the pitcher of water sitting on the top shelf in the fridge and not on the neat pile of blood bags next to it. “Shut up.”

“You shouldn’t have zoned out on Sara’s neck today.”

Ryan started to bite his lip to keep himself from snapping, but the sharp point of his fangs quickly stopped him, which only made the growing anger worse. “I just got distracted, it won’t happen again.”

Even to his own ears, he sounded more pleading than certain, but goddamn it, he really didn’t want to talk about this again.

“Are you hungry?”

“No, I’m not- No! I drank some this morning.”

Shane reached past him for one of the blood bags. Ryan’s attention snapped to Shane’s fingers as he tore it open right under his nose, the scent hitting the air and making his nostrils flare. His mouth watered and he took a step backwards. Not because he was afraid of it, but because he had a point to prove.

“So you won’t mind me drinking all of this,” Shane said blandly, not even bothering to pour the blood in a mug before he tipped his head back and chugged straight from the bag. A drop spilled from the corner of his mouth to snake down his chin and Ryan moved right back to where he had been without realizing it, closing what little space there was between them.

“You weren’t raised in a barn,” Ryan managed to spit out, carefully setting his glass of ice onto the counter before he forgot himself and broke it. “You’re disgusting.”

“Like I haven’t seen you do the exact same thing. And you can’t even keep yourself still.”

Ryan hesitated as soon he realized that he had somehow cornered Shane against the fridge, with no memory of doing so. He told himself to pull away, but his muscles wouldn’t listen. “My control is fine!” he exclaimed, scowling to hide how much he wanted to rip the bag from Shane’s hand or lick the blood that was slowly soaking through stubble. God, no matter how much blood he drank, there was always a part of him that craved more of it. The need was easier to deal with than it had been, but there was a gnawing emptiness in the pit of his stomach that never went away.

He could only compare it to not eating for two days and then being presented with the biggest, juiciest burrito in existence. Shane had laughed at him when he had said his comparison out loud, but hadn’t disagreed, either.

Shane’s expression softened as he lowered the bag. “Your control is great, Ryan. But you don’t know what you’ll do if you bite someone and you need to learn.”

Ryan’s scowl deepened. “The doctor said I don’t need to like, actually bite anyone if I don’t want to.”

“The doctor,” Shane said, his mouth twisting as if he was trying not to show his disdain, “Isn’t a vampire. Medically, no you don’t need to. But your instincts are going crazy, don’t try to deny it. What if there’s an emergency and you can’t buy a bag? What if you’re hurt and you need the blood immediately and someone volunteers?”

Feeling like it took a herculean effort just to turn his head away, Ryan someone managed to convince his feet to walk away from Shane. “I’m not having this discussion again.”

“You’ll feel even worse if something like that happens and can’t stop yourself. Believe it or not, I’m not harping on this for my health. If nothing else, you need to practice.”

Ryan headed towards the bedroom and his headphones. Playing music too loud was one of the few ways he could hear himself think in this brave new world of being a vampire.

“You know you can bite me. It’s a good first step and would give you an idea of how you would react-

A shiver stole it’s way over Ryan’s entire body as he experienced a flash of vivid imagination, the idea of sinking his teeth into Shane’s flesh so visceral that he had to reach out to support himself on the wall. The feeling settled in his jaw, an ache that begged him to take Shane up on his offer.

Before Shane could say anything else to try and convince him, Ryan shook his head and continued to walk away.

Drinking blood was fine.

In the calmer moments, he could even admit to liking it.

Biting, though?

Biting had gone from a fun, kinky thing to do in the middle of sex to an animal instinct that he felt like he wrestled with every moment of the day. Ever since he had looked at the nurse checking his vitals after his change and had experienced the strong, alien impulse to rip into the man’s wrist, he had stubbornly locked away that desire.

The first time Shane had made the suggestion of being Ryan’s first ‘bitee’, Ryan had laughed it off, teasing Shane for the things he wanted to get up to in bed and then dismissing the idea. But after what had happened that night, he didn’t even want to joke about it.

He was a vampire now, not a beast. There’d be no biting for him in the future.

 

\-------------------------

 

It was supposed to be a fun day with friends. High school and college friends he hadn’t seen in months. Roommates that were more like former roommates because he hadn’t made the move to Shane’s official yet. People he had missed a surprising amount.

Everyone knew he would be fine. There’d be no problems. Two months as a vampire and he was doing great. He didn’t need Shane to babysit him anymore.

No matter the incident that wasn't even a real incident with Sara. So he stared at her neck? Big deal.

It had started out like any other Saturday with the guys; shootin’ the shit and knockin’ back cheap beers. Granted, he had been drinking far less than he used to, but the taste of PBR didn’t quite cut it when it didn’t even give him a buzz, and all he could think about was how good blood was in comparison.

“So, worst thing about being a vampire?”

Ryan didn’t even blink. He had been expecting that line of questioning, and hell, he had already complained about half the weird vampire shit he was going through in a string of text conversations with his roommates. It wasn’t like he was being private about it. “The fuckin’ food, man,” he groaned, dramatically throwing his head back like he was praying to heaven, just to have an excuse to look away from Roland’s throat. “Two bites and I’m full.”

Tossing his empty can into the recycling, Roland laughed and leaned against the wall. “You do look like you’ve lost weight.”

“Liquid diet will do that,” Ryan said absently, taking a sliding step closer, at an oblique angle that forced Roland to turn his head to watch him.

“Surprised the vampire diet hasn’t become all the rage.”

Smile turning into a grin as he imagined how disgusted his friend would be, Ryan added, “Actually, the worst part is knowing whenever a woman is on her period."

Sure enough, Roland made a horrified face. "Gross, dude. Tell me you're fucking with me."

"I don’t know, am I?" Ryan asked, taking another smooth step closer. Roland leaned away and Ryan followed, his focus on the flutter of a pulse barely hidden by thin, breakable skin.

Roland started laughing. “Wait, no, I got that long rambling-ass text about how much it sucked that the only sense that really got stronger was hearing.”

Words seemed unimportant as Ryan managed to mutter, “Maybe. Could be.”

The rush of blood whispered far away, like a soothing stream.

Roland said something, but the sound was drowned out by his healthy, strong heartbeat.

Ryan knew the kind of diet Roland had and he had to wonder how that would affect the flavor of blood. He wouldn’t be surprised if it was saltier than most, though he had been surprised to learn how salty blood already was, once he got past the metallic taste.

It was the sound of Roland’s heart tripping that had made Ryan realize what he was doing. A slightly uncomfortable, “Ryan? Hey man, what’s up?” that had finally made him back away. An ache in his teeth that had made him walk out of the house in a daze, throwing out a half-assed explanation about forgetting to do something at Shane’s.

Right outside the door, he was hit hard by what he had been contemplating. What he had nearly done.

Without realizing it, without any prior thought on his part, Ryan had driven one of his oldest friends into a corner. Had trapped him. Like prey. Like his friend was just a meal that needed to be separated from the rest of the herd.

A meal that was warm and healthy, ripe for the picking.

He managed to make it to the sidewalk in front of the house before he had to crouch down, his hands over his ears in an effort to block out the sounds that surrounded him. Sometimes he felt like he could hear _everything_. The drone of various televisions, the barking of dogs throughout the neighborhood, the chirping of birds everywhere, the constant buzz and hum of traffic, the movements of the people in the houses around him, the conversation between his friends as they wondered what the hell was up with him.

The knowledge that he was surrounded by dozens of people filled with rich, warm, living blood pressed down on him like a physical weight. God, it would be so easy to walk back inside and-

He needed to call Shane. He needed to get out of the area but he didn’t think he could drive when he was this shaky and he didn’t dare call an Uber. Not like this. Not alone.

‘ _Meals on wheels_ ’ he thought to himself, covering his mouth to stop the sudden hysterical giggles.

His fingers shook so badly that his phone slipped out of his grasp when he tried to pull it out of his pocket, falling to the cracked cement. He took a deep breath, willing himself to calm down. Gingerly, afraid that he would break the screen if he forgot about his new strength in his stress, Ryan picked up his phone and tried to call Shane. It rang to voicemail because of course it did. “C'mon,” he muttered to himself in a voice that trembled as he called again. “Don’t screen your calls now, answer the damn phone.”

“Hey,” came the confused voice of his maker- of his boyfriend- of _Shane_. “Ryan?”

At the sound, Ryan felt like he needed to sit down, a feeling of such relief passing over him that his knees went weak. He made himself straighten up, painfully aware of how exposed he was in front of the house, how easy it would be for one of his friends to peek out the front windows and see him having a breakdown. The last thing anyone needed was for some well-meaning friend to come outside to ask what was wrong.

“Shane,” he whispered, for a moment unable to push the damning words past his teeth. “I… “

“What is it? Is something wrong?”

He could hear the quiet swell of worry in Shane’s voice, and that was what made him able to say, “I need to come home.”

“Did something happen?”

Ryan squeezed his eyes shut, trying to focus on the sounds he could hear through the phone and not what was going on around him. “Almost?”

Shane made a frustrated noise. “Almost? What does that- Nevermind, you can tell me when you get home. Just tell me if anyone is hurt?"

Ryan cringed, but he wasn't surprised the question was asked. Even other vampires treated new vampires like ticking timebombs. "No. No, I… I didn't do anything."

'Yet' went unspoken.

"Do you need me to pick you up?”

It was so tempting to ask Shane to do exactly that. To drive, even though he hated driving, through an hour of LA traffic just to turn around and go back. But Ryan wasn’t that far gone. He didn’t think. “No, I- I can get an Uber. But please keep talking. Don’t hang up.” His second ‘please’ was so quiet that a human wouldn’t have been able to hear him.

He knew Shane had heard him loud and clear when the guy started talking about the show he was watching, though. One of the few good things about vampiric hearing was that he didn’t need to put his phone on speaker as he pulled it away from his ear to shakily order an Uber.

And Shane didn’t really need him to reply to know that he was there and listening, which Ryan found himself extremely thankful for. He wasn’t sure he could have made himself respond. The idea of opening his mouth, of trying to form words around the fangs he still sometimes cut his tongue on, was nearly impossible to comprehend.

When the Uber arrived, Ryan kept his head and eyes down, barely murmuring a greeting as he slid into the back. He relaxed slightly when the woman seemed ambivalent to his lack of response. Ride shares in LA always came with a better than average odds of being subjected to a show pitch, or once, hilariously, an entire script.

“You’re on the way?”

Ryan managed to make some kind affirming noise to Shane’s question, once again closing his eyes.

That turned out to be a mistake. Without the distraction of watching the traffic and buildings pass by, the sounds echoing in the confines of the car began to overwhelm him. His own harsh breathing, the rumble of the tires over pavement, the engine, the beat of the music on the radio, the meaningless words Shane was saying, the constant working of the driver’s lungs, the gurgling of her stomach, and under it all, the unmistakable melody of her heartbeat.

He pressed his phone harder into the side of his face, clenching his free hand into a fist so hard that he could feel the skin of his palm part under his nails. The tang of his own blood hit the air, the scent faintly wrong and something he focused on as hard as he could.

“Ryan, please say something. Ryan. Ryan!”

Tilting his head back until it rested on the seat, Ryan gathered himself enough to breathe, “Yeah?”

“Fuck,” Shane muttered, so low that Ryan thought maybe he wasn’t supposed to have heard it. “Where are you? How close are you?”

Ryan drug his eyelids open, rolling his head along the back of the seat to look out the window. It took him far longer to recognize where they were than it should have. “Close. Five minutes.”

The beat of the driver’s heart continued on, unhurried and unworried. She obviously didn’t know she had a predator behind her.

“I’m going to meet you outside, okay?”

Ryan nodded, then remembered Shane couldn’t see him. “Okay.”

“Do I need to bring out a jacket to cover your clothes?”

“No,” Ryan muttered, breathing slowly through his nose to hold back the hot press of tears that were threatening to spill. The fact that Shane even had to ask, in case he had done something to stain his shirt, something like getting blood everywhere, was mortifiying.

“A towel?”

Ryan paused. “What? No.”

With an audible smile, Shane asked, “A bodybag?”

A snort of laughter bubbled up before Ryan could really register the question. “What the fuck? No, fuck you, man.”

“Are you sure? I don’t actually have one, but I might have a garment bag in the closet if you’re desperate-”

“No, what the hell,” Ryan interrupted, laughing as he rubbed his hand over his face, scrubbing over his eyes and grimacing for a second. He hated crying while he was wearing contacts. The scent of his own blood filled his nose, the cuts on his palm throbbing. “You can’t just say shit like that. You going to help me conceal my crimes now, is that what you’re telling me?”

“The Ghoul Boys are ride or die!”

Ryan finally let himself relax, his shoulders slumping as he idly watched the driver take a couple turns. Her hair was cut short, revealing all of her neck. “I think I already proved the die part, so I guess it’s your turn now.”

When they pulled up in front of Shane’s apartment building, Shane was already standing in front of the entrance. He was wearing sweatpants and shoes he must have jammed on without socks, judging by how much of his ankle could be seen. It was weird to see him wearing only a T-shirt outside, his skin so pale that it looked sickly in the light of the afternoon sun. Between that, his messy hair, and his weird attempt at a welcoming smile that did nothing to hide his worry, he looked a little like a junkie.

“Are you sure you want to stop here?” the driver asked tentatively, her gaze on Shane.

Ryan couldn’t help it. He laughed without thinking, his fangs clearly on display. He could even see them in the rearview mirror. To the driver’s credit, her expression didn’t change. But there was nothing that could disguise from Ryan how her heartbeat picked up speed, a quick tattoo of a beat that he wanted to move to. “He’s my maker,” he informed her blithely, the odd word that he had never thought he would say with a straight face coming out of his mouth without pause.

She swallowed, the sound loud in his ears, but she shrugged in a manner that said, ‘so?’ “Alright. Still, are you sure you want to stop here?”

Her heart drew him forward, made him lean against the seat belt he had no memory of putting on. The drumming was a song he wanted to be a part of. “He’s not a morning person,” he said with a charming grin. There was no point in hiding his fangs, so he didn’t bother to try. “He needs a few hours to wake up.”

“It’s three in the afternoon.”

“He’s not a day person,” he offered, chuckling at his own joke. Her eyebrows furrowed for a second before she laughed reluctantly, like she hated to admit that she had found it funny.

An urge bubbled out of him, an emptiness in his gut and a pressure in his jaw that made him ask, “Hey, you want to meet him?” He unbuckled the seat belt to slide forward, planting his elbows on the edges of the seats in front of him to lean into her space. “I’m sure we have some drinks in the fridge that aren’t blood?”

The driver twisted in her seat to stare him full in the face, one eyebrow raised. “You this obvious with every girl you meet?”

Ryan gave her his most boyish grin. He knew what he looked like, since he had dressed for a day with the guys. The loose tank top and baggy shorts made him look like the frat boy he once was and he doubted the fangs really took away from that picture.

 _It’s better if she thinks you’re harmless_.

Ignoring the thought, Ryan tilted his head and winked cheerfully, knowing full well it made him look goofy. “Only the fun ones.”

Before she could answer, the car door opened next to him and Shane reached in, practically pulling Ryan out one-handed. “I’m sorry,” he apologized to the driver. “Ignore him, he’s drunk. Yes, vampires can get drunk if they try hard enough.” Even as Ryan was protesting that he had barely had one beer, Shane pushed him towards the door of the building. “I’ll make sure he tips you double.”

Shane shut the door before anyone else could say anything, then spun on his feet to glare at Ryan. “Get inside.”

Ryan obeyed without question, the thought of the blood that waited for him in the fridge abruptly filling his every thought. It wasn’t until he had gulped down a full bag that the enormity of the entire day hit him.

The empty bag fell from his numb hands. It was caught by Shane, who apparently had been standing right next to him.

Staring, Ryan could only slowly shake his head back and forth. He had no memory of Shane being there. He had no memory of walking into the apartment. Of grabbing the blood or tearing open the bag.

“You back with me?”

Ryan blinked slowly up at Shane, catching his bottom lip between his front teeth in an attempt to hold back how much he wanted to suddenly freak out.

Shane nodded, threw the bag into the sink, then abruptly pulled Ryan into an embrace that trembled. The arms around him were tight and all Ryan could do for a long moment was let himself breathe against Shane’s shoulder, trying not to sob.

“Come on,” Shane whispered after a few minutes of silence broken only by strained breathing. He led Ryan into the living room by hand, then gently pushed him until he was perched on the edge of the couch. Rather than sit next to him, Shane sat on the coffee table in front of the couch, so that Ryan was forced to meet his gaze if he looked up. “Now tell me what happened. Why did you have to come home so early?”

“I… “

Shane waited patiently, his expression bland but expectant.

“Oh God,” Ryan choked, his hands beginning to shake as he came to the realization that he would have to say it out loud. “I think I nearly bit Roland.”

Shane nodded, not an ounce of surprise in his reaction. “And?”

Ryan stared. “And?! And what?! Didn’t you hear me? I nearly-”

“I’ve been telling you since day one that your instincts were going to drive you towards biting someone,” Shane said, completely implacable. The only hint that he wasn’t as stern as he seemed was the way he was clenching his hands around his knees. “Tell me what happened. What brought it on?”

It hurt to think back on the day. To remember how fun and easy it had been to hang out with his friends. The turn to craving had happened so gradually that he hadn’t even realized it was happening until it had nearly been too late. “I don’t know. I was just talking to Roland. And I- He was against a wall and- I. I cornered him.”

Again, Shane nodded, which didn’t help Ryan in the slightest.

“I didn’t see him as- as my friend,” Ryan said, staring down at his hands. He traced the lines and curves of his palm with his eyes, as if they might hold some kind of answer to a question he didn’t even know how to ask. The marks where he had cut into his skin with his nails in the car were already gone. “He was… Food. We’ve been friends for years. Fuck, we’ve been friends over a decade. And I- I just wanted to-” He stopped himself, curling his fingers over his palms and staring at his fingernails. There was a faint tinge of rusty brown along the edges.

“It’s fine,” Shane said after a pause, cupping his hands under Ryan’s. “You’re fine, everyone is fine. Ryan, I’m so proud of you.”

Ryan darted his gaze up, shocked. “You’re what?” Shane’s expression was more open than it than it had been, reflecting that he really did seem to be happy for him. _Happy_. As if he hadn’t nearly ripped open one of his oldest friends. “How-”

“You didn’t hurt anyone,” Shane interrupted him, squeezing Ryan’s fingers. “I texted them while you were on your way here. You didn’t even touch anyone. I don’t know what you’re remembering or what you think happened, but everyone is completely fine. That’s amazing. You’re so young and you didn’t go for an easy source of blood.”

With a flinch that he tried to hide by pulling his hands back, Ryan snapped, “I wanted to tear open his throat like some kind of animal, how is that a good thing? I shouldn’t even be having that kind of urge, I’ve never wanted to hurt someone like that, like some- some kind of monster!”

He wanted to take the words back as soon as they were out of his mouth, but it was too late.

Shane straightened, his mouth thinning into a grim line. The words seemed to echo in the air between them. Ryan was still breathing, a habit that would apparently take years to fall out of. Shane was not. Other than the dull thud of his slow heartbeat, he was completely silent.

“That… that’s not what I meant,” Ryan tried to say. “I didn’t mean-”

Shane looked away.

“Come on, man, you know I don’t think you’re a- that vampires- that _we’re_ -”

“I told you, Ryan,” came the slow, flat words. “How many times did I tell you we’re monsters?”

Ryan opened his mouth but there was nothing he could say. His usual response to that kind of talk was tempered by the very fresh memory and guilt of wanting nothing more than to take his friend’s blood.

Oh God, of wanting to take a stranger’s blood.

He thought he could still hear the beat of the driver’s heart.

“But that doesn’t mean we can’t have self control,” Shane continued abruptly, before he could figure what to say. “We may be creatures of instinct but we’re not ruled by them. If we were, there’d be a hell of a lot fewer new vampires being made in this day and age. The fact that the government doesn’t regulate it is proof that we’re more than our urges.” Soft brown eyes met his again. “You stopped yourself. Before you even touched anyone. Knowing your friends, they’re probably already wondering what the fuss and drama was about.”

A soft exhale of something resembling laughter left Ryan. It was true, he knew. From their perspective, he had merely stood there for a few seconds and then ran out of the building.

“And the Uber driver just thought you were hitting on her.”

Ryan’s laugh fell off, sick guilt making him squirm. “I wasn’t, though.” He quickly looked up. “I wasn’t hitting on her, I swear-”

Shane shook his head. “You were. I’m not mad about that.” A glimmer of anger turned his gentle voice stern and his expression flat. “I _am_ mad that you tried to invite a stranger into my apartment. I know you’re not entirely to blame, I know that you don’t really know what’s going on with your instincts, but I’m not sharing someone with you when you haven’t bitten anyone yet.”

“What?!” Ryan exclaimed, his face heating as the blood in his body moved sluggishly into a blush. “Share? Shane, what-” Then understanding dawned and he dropped his head into his hands. “You mean for blood. Not sex.”

“I’m not going to bring up threesomes until at least a decade into the relationship,” Shane said wryly. When Ryan tilted his head to take a peek, he couldn’t tell if the guy was joking or not.

“Wait, are you serious-”

“You’re a vampire, Bergara,” Shane interrupted, brushing his fingers under Ryan’s chin to tip his head up. His thumb pushed in between Ryan’s lips and along the point of two fangs. “Everything is about blood now.”

Ryan shook his head, careful to pull back so that he wouldn’t nick Shane’s thumb. “That’s not true.”

Shane shrugged. “No, but it’s close enough. You can bet your cute little tush that we’ll be sharing someone at some point in our future.”

The implications and how casually Shane said it made Ryan want to squirm away in pure embarrassment. But the part of him that was always hungry, that longed to please the one that had created him, perked up at the idea. He ignored that part. “Fuck you, my tush isn’t little.”

“Cute, though.”

Ryan relaxed against the back of the couch. He was so fucking tired and all he had wanted to do was see his friends. Maybe he should have waited another week.

“I really think you need to bite someone-”

So much for thinking they were done being emotional and vulnerable.

“No,” Ryan stated. “Definitely not.”

Shane leaned forward, his expression a weird mix of angry and pleading. “I’m a shitty sire. I hate making you do things for your own good, but I should have made you bite someone, even if it’s just me, weeks ago. Please don’t make me force the issue.”

“I don’t _want_ -”

With a faint snarl that was more animal than human, Shane snapped, in a tired voice, “It’s not about what you want. You’ll do it sooner or later. It will be better for everyone involved if it’s while you’re coherent.”

There was something so drastically implacable and knowing about how Shane said it that Ryan’s initial angry retort was checked. He fell silent, staring morosely at his own lap.

“Just because you ripped my tongue-”

Ryan flinched.

Shane sighed and moved to the couch, settling next to Ryan and pulling him into a loose side-hug. “You’ve gotta face it, little guy.”

Ryan said nothing but did relax into Shane, taking what comfort he could. He hated being reminded of the first time they had tried to have sex after he had turned. It had been terrible. And not for any of the reasons he would have anticipated.

It had been terrible because he had forgotten himself and bitten down on Shane’s tongue with far more force than he had known he possessed.

Ryan had learned his lesson after that. He wasn’t the type to give up. If it had been some other mishap, something comical that they could have laughed at, he would have cheerfully kept trying. With complete seriousness, even if he had laughed more than anything else, he had gone around the apartment practicing his blowjob skills on popsicles for a week after turning into a vampire, because he didn’t care how brave Shane was, no guy deserved that turning into an unfortunate accident.

Maybe that was why he had felt so guilty. He had _known_ that his new teeth were dangerous. He just hadn’t thought beyond the humor of having them next to a dick.

The image of his boyfriend’s tongue and lips a mangled, bloody mess because he had forgotten himself was one that haunted Ryan. Partly from disgust and partly from hunger, which made him even more disgusted. It had been a pointed reminder that he needed to be more careful. That he wasn’t human anymore.

That he was one mistake away from starring in a particularly gruesome horror. And while he loved horror movies, he didn’t want to be in one.

Not that his fangs were particularly sharp. He wasn’t ginsu knifing his way through titanium with his new canines. It was the strength that he had to be leery of. Ryan could remember Shane lifting him with ease and telling him that he didn’t want that kind of unnatural strength and now a part of him wished that he had listened to Shane’s warnings. He probably wouldn’t have changed his mind about becoming a vampire, but he might have been a little more cautious.

Regulating his strength when it came to picking things up, high fiving friends, or pulling his family members into a hug had been easy. Even when he was human he had always tried to be gentle and the fast heartbeats of the people around him were a constant reminder to be careful. But one didn’t think about that while two minutes away from getting down and dirty. Who thought about their fucking mouth strength? Who the fuck thought ‘I need to be careful so I don’t accidentally bite my partner's tongue off?’

And because of that incident, they rarely kissed. Sure, there were still simple pecks to the cheek and he still indulged in an occasional lingering press of his lips to Shane’s.

What he wanted, what he missed far more than he would have guessed, were the desperate, horny, deep kisses that happened in the middle of sex and were more of an attempt to fuck Shane’s throat with his tongue than an actual kiss. And he couldn’t have that anymore.

It was a small thing; a pointless complaint in a sea of life changes and even Shane had stayed quiet about it. Probably because he recognized that telling Ryan that a mangled tongue wasn’t bad would only lead to an argument.

He had been convinced that he would never again try to do anything with his mouth, be it kissing or biting. Or oral, which was something Shane had _not_ been quiet about. But the memory of how he had tried, without thinking, to lure a stranger into privacy so that he could get at her blood was far fresher than the memory of Shane jerking away from him, covered in blood.

God, he really didn’t want to hurt anyone.

“Give me some time to get used to the idea.”

“You’ve had months.”

Ryan leaned harder into Shane, not above using some emotional manipulation to put off the seeming inevitable. “Please? I’ll do it. I’ll bite someone.” Fuck, that was hard to say. “You. I’ll bite you. Just not yet.” Or he could ask Sara or Jen. Hell, Curly would probably be up for it.

Shane’s sigh was long but there was an edge of relief to it. “Fine. Fine, you spoiled brat of a vampire.”

Laugh giddy from having been able to put off the decision, Ryan asked, “Hey, Shane?”

“Hmm?”

“Don’t ever call yourself ‘sire’ again. For the love of all that’s holy and my peace of mind.”

Shane grinned and leaned over him. “That’s the term, baby!”

“For fuck’s sake, don’t call me baby, either.”

 

\------------------

 

Three weeks passed and Ryan was back at work, carefully ignoring Shane’s exasperated looks whenever he drank blood. Shane hated confrontation and Ryan was more than willing to count on that to keep pushing the looming date of biting someone farther and farther back.

He knew it was a stupid, stupid thing to do, but he kept hoping that eventually Shane would somehow forget about it. Or say that he was doing fine and his control was great and fuck what all the other vampires said.

One incident was enough, thanks.

It was weird to be back amongst the living, as he loved to keep telling everyone that stopped by to welcome him back to work, but it was also incredible. He had been one day away from turning the corner of Shane’s living room into a gym, just to have something to do. And because watching Shane bitch about it would have been hilarious.

The absolute best thing about working on projects again was that he was too busy to zone out on the heartbeats around him. It was hard to be distracted by someone’s pulse when he had three different deadlines approaching, episode ideas to pitch, and networking to establish. The few snags he hit from suddenly being a vampire were, so far, surprisingly few.

Social media comments on his change didn’t count, since there was always going to be someone angry on the internet.

By the third week back to work, he had nearly forgotten that he had promised Shane that he would try that whole biting thing. And Shane wasn’t pushing it, so all the better.

“Matty, I swear to God I’m going to end you if I have to do this again.”

With an unconcerned shrug and a faint smirk under his mustache, Matty just gestured for him to start. Ryan sighed, then dropped into his theory voice and said his introduction for the newest episode for the third time. It was a sponsored episode and Ryan had jumped at the opportunity, since he wasn’t sure when studios would stop reaching out to them once his status as a vampire became more common knowledge. But sponsors meant the soundbites had to be perfect and he trusted his team to tell him when he hit that level of perfection.

That being said, he wouldn't put it past Matty to make him do it a few extra times just to fuck with him.

“I’m getting some kind of weird feedback,” Matty said, interrupting him. “Can you adjust the pop filter?”

Ryan wiggled a few pieces around and asked if that was better, but the response he received was a frown. “Loose cables?” he suggested. “Who used this last?”

“Didn’t pay attention to the schedule. Do you think you can- Actually, I’ll just come in there and take a look.”

Sighing, Ryan took a step back from the mic and pulled his phone out, checking his emails. He didn’t pay much attention as Matty came into the soundbooth and started tinkering around with the microphone, muttering something about static.

Being in the soundbooth for the first time after becoming a vampire had been something of a revelation. He could almost call it a blessing. Thanks to the soundproofing of the room, nearly all noise was cut off from the office. It wasn’t complete silence, but it was close, and Ryan could foresee himself hiding away in the tiny, dark room in the future to get relief from the constant sound around him.

He had never been in the room with someone before.

The door had been left open, so at first all he heard was the noises of people walking past, the distant conversations going on throughout the building, and the constant rattling of plumbing that he was really going to have to ask maintenance about.

Gradually, creeping into his thoughts like a slow-moving rise of flood water, was the awareness of Matty’s heartbeat. He came to the realization that he was no longer looking at his phone, instead staring at the line of skin along Matty’s wrist as he worked on the mic. The blue veins stood out starkly, a beacon that called Ryan closer with each flex of the hand.

Ryan put his phone on the stand where his script set, something telling him that he needed his hands free. In a blink he was abruptly in Matty’s space in a way he never was with co-workers.

Too focused on what he was doing to notice beyond a weird look, Matty nudged him away with an elbow. When Ryan stayed where he was, gaze heavy and intent, Matty pushed the stand farther away with his foot to give himself more room.

And Ryan-

Growled.

It was quiet, barely more than a rumble. If they had been outside the soundbooth, no one but Ryan would have known it had happened.

In nearly four months of being a vampire, Ryan had never felt the need to growl. He hadn’t really been sure he could do it and he would die before admitting that he had spent one afternoon while Shane was away trying to produce the sound.

The pathetic, half-garbled noises he had managed that day were nothing compared to what he was doing now. Vibrating through his chest, it traveled up the back of his vocal cords, spilling out of his mouth in quiet warning.

Matty jerked his head up and flinched away when he saw how close Ryan had gotten. He let out a nervous laugh, slowly bringing up both hands in a placating gesture. “Jesus Christ, you scared me."

The growl grew higher pitched, pushing from Ryan’s throat as he slid one foot closer, poised to pounce.

After a long, deep breath through his nose, Matty said in a loud, surprisingly calm voice, “Shane, Ryan’s going a little feral. I’m getting a ‘creature of the night’ vibe here and I really hope you can hear this.” He very slowly leaned away. “Hey, Ryan, you want to give me some room?”

Under the steady words and calm expression was a fast beat that rolled like thunder in Ryan’s hearing, drowning out all other thought. He knew there was no way that his prey could escape. The knowledge pleased him. He reached for Matty’s upheld wrist, the skin deliciously warm under his fingers, throbbing with the rush of blood and life.

It startled him when Shane appeared in the doorway, windswept and wild-eyed, like he had run there. Ryan went still, all of his attention switched from the cornered prey to the unwelcome newcomer. He tracked every movement as Shane edged closer, his senses recognizing another predator.

“Ryan,” Shane said cautiously, putting his hand on Ryan’s shoulder. The sound booth was too small for three people, crowded in a way that made the little hairs all over Ryan’s body rise.

He snarled at Shane, baring teeth out of instinct. It was an animalistic sound that he had never produced before. Had never felt the need to produce. But now another vampire was threatening his space, threatening his prey, prey that was _his_.

Shane straightened. Narrowed his eyes. And growled back. It was far deeper and louder than what Ryan had done, reverberating the air in the small room. Ryan was shocked into silence.

Even the near deafening crash of Matty’s heartbeat couldn’t distract him from the feeling of shame that was crawling up his throat.

He had heard Shane growl before. When he had been human. Once or twice since he had become a vampire. Always playful and always quiet. Never had Shane growled at him like this, angry and forceful.

It made something deep in his psyche take notice.

This was an older, more powerful vampire that was _his_ vampire, _his_ maker, and what the hell was he even doing?

The sheer surprise of Shane’s angry growl made Ryan take a step back, until he was no longer touching Matty and Shane was no longer touching him. Guilt that he had disappointed his maker made him cower backward, ducking his head in a show of deference that was pure instinct.

“Get up slowly and back out of the room,” Shane said, an angry rumble still under his voice. Matty did as he was told, sending a surprisingly sympathetic glance Ryan’s way before shutting the door closed behind him.

Shane crossed his arms over his chest and leveled a narrow-eyed gaze at Ryan. It was uncomfortably like a parent staring down a child they were chastening, making the need to chase after the source of blood that had left completely disappear. Ryan slowly straightened, giving up on trying to hold that stare, and made a show of picking up his phone, instead.

“Ryan.”

Everything in his body told him to beg, to prostrate himself before the one who had made him and pray for forgiveness.

He was far too stubborn for that. It would take more than wayward, stupid instincts to make him act like he didn’t have a spine.

That didn’t stop the thin whimper that trailed from his lips when Shane took a sudden step forward. “Ryan,” he growled, so low that the consonants of the name disappeared in a rumble. It would have been funny if Ryan hadn’t felt like shit. “Snap out of it. You are not doing this at work.”

“I’m fine,” Ryan answered, forcing his words past teeth that ached. God, his throat felt dry.

“Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.”

“Fuck off.” The words were out before Ryan could stop himself, but he knew he didn’t want to stop. Anger was better than fear. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Because I got here before you could.”

“No, I wasn’t going to- I…” Ryan trailed off, unable to finish the lie.

Shane raised his eyebrows, disbelief so clear that it was practically plastered on. Ryan couldn’t hold his gaze and looked down, fidgeting with his phone.

After a long moment, Shane said gently, “You are going to pull yourself together, apologize to Matty, and you’re going to tell him it was a territory thing.”

“But it wasn’t.”

Shane glanced around to make sure nothing was being recorded, then said in a hiss that was so quiet that a human wouldn’t have been able to make out the words. “You are going to _lie_ , Ryan.”

Ryan glared. “I’m not lying to my friend!”

“You do not, in a situation like this, let a human know you were going to bite them for hunger,” Shane whispered, features so harsh that he looked like a stranger. “They can handle anger, they can’t handle the fact that they’re food.”

“What’s with this they-we bullshit? Vampires are still human!”

Here Shane’s expression crumpled, until he just looked weary and so very, very tired. “Are we? It doesn’t matter what the scientists say. It doesn’t matter if it’s a virus and not some dark magic. There are always going to be people that consider us something other than human. I would have thought-” He paused, then sighed. His glasses did nothing to hide the way his eyes gleamed with the first hint of unshed tears. “Twenty years ago, Matty, your friend, could have called hunters to take you out because you showed that you were a danger to humans.”

“He would never do that.”

“Probably not,” Shane said with a listless shrug. “But you never know until it happens.” He looked away. “Please don’t make me watch as they take you away. I… I don’t think I could handle that. And I’m old enough that if I tried to protect you, I could hurt a lot of people.” His mouth tugged up in a faint smile. “My zingers can get pretty emotional.”

There was nothing Ryan could say to that, either to the statement or the lame attempt at a joke.

After a pained silence, Shane squared his shoulders and looked back at Ryan. “Tell Matty whatever you want to tell him. Then meet me at the car. We’re going home.”

Ryan felt obligated to say that it wasn’t time to leave yet, but he couldn’t find it in him to protest out loud. He wanted to leave.

No, what he really wanted was to taste the life that flowed hot through Matty’s veins and find out if it would be as good as he imagined. But that was probably considered an act that should be reported to HR and he really didn’t want to become that kind of co-worker.

And there was a lingering sense of shame for disappointing his maker that he refused to look at too closely. It was the only thing keeping him on an even keel, unfortunately.

He got the feeling he would have started freaking out over his near attack, otherwise.

 

\-----------

 

“Do you know why you nearly attacked Matty? Or Roland or that woman?”

Ryan let out a long sigh, pushing his fingertips against his forehead to ward off the headache that he could feel brewing. “Are we really doing this in the elevator?”

Shane merely continued to stare at him.

Rolling his eyes, Ryan muttered, “Because I was hungry.”

“Were you?”

Ryan sent him a quick glance, confused. “Yeah? Duh. Why else would I want to start munching on people?”

“You drank this morning.”

Ryan carefully didn’t say that he always craved blood. He didn’t know if it was a universal feeling for vampires and he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to know. He just shrugged, instead.

“Do you need to drink now?” Shane hesitated, then added, “Have I not been getting enough for you?” His eyebrows were drawn down, a quick, troubled expression betraying the worry that he wasn’t providing enough. Which was bullshit. Ryan knew for a fact that Shane was over-feeding him, going by the information he had gone home with after turning.

Knowing how much blood cost was part of why he had thrown himself so hard back into work and the aggravating world of networking. Feeding a new vampire wasn’t cheap if they wanted to stay away from the bars and bite junkies.

Shaking his head, Ryan said, “I’m fine. I could always go for more, but it’s not like I’m starving. It’s like popcorn, right? I could be stuffed to the gills and still want more.”

Shane snorted, calm on the surface. But Ryan knew his boyfriend too well to be fooled by the faint smirk. There was something about his demeanor that was growing more tense as they got closer to his apartment. When the elevator slowed to a stop, there was the quiet sound of a shaky exhale that barely escaped Shane’s lips.

It was as Shane closed the front door of his apartment behind them that he finally said something. “I know you read the pamphlets and did your research.”

Ryan made a questioning noise, nervous as he carefully watched the other man. Shane was up to something and he got the feeling he wouldn’t like it.

“About vampires. About the differences between us and humans.”

“Jesus Christ, dude, we’re still hu-”

“Your new body is designed for one thing,” Shane continued, removing his shoes and bag with the stilted movements of someone trying to find comfort in routine as he talked. “Getting blood. Specifically via biting.”

Ryan had spent more than one night falling down the rabbit hole of websites about vampires and vampirism. Both the legit sources and the speculative forums. He knew better than to believe what Shane was saying. “No, it’s for the iron. It’s all about-”

Shane raised one hand. “No.” Then he grimaced and rolled his shoulders in a loose shrug. “Well, yes. But no.”

Ryan narrowed one eye at him, giving him an exasperated glare. “What?”

“Yeah, I’m really fucking this up,” Shane agreed, laughing tiredly behind the hand he scrubbed over his face. “Come on.”

Ryan followed behind him, surprised that Shane had so easily admitted it. He only allowed himself one glance towards the kitchen with its fridge full of blood. On the one hand, he was incredibly thankful that he hadn’t had a breakdown like he had with Roland. On the other, he was certain he was riding a line of suppressed hysterics and it would be incredibly easy to fall over that edge. “What are you trying to say?”

“Human blood is where we get our iron,” Shane muttered as he led them towards the bedroom and began to strip the blankets off the mattress. “Obviously. Just like most biological imperatives, it’s flawed, stupid, and horribly inefficient but there you have it. It’d make more sense if we were meant to get iron from vegetables, but have you tried imagining that? Farmer’s markets would be even more pretentious.”

Taking a moment to picture that, Ryan let out a surprised wheeze of laughter. “Oh my God. Those old Dracula movies wouldn’t be nearly as good. Old guy running around offering spinach and almonds to hot young women to seduce them. Using broccoli to defeat the intrepid hunter.”

“‘Oh the horror! He gave me _legumes_!’” Shane said in a high-pitched falsetto, pausing in the middle of throwing pillows to the floor to clasp his hands to his chest dramatically. Then his silly expression tilted into one of speculation. “I’m not sure why it never occurred to me that you would like those pictures, but I’m also not surprised. Lugosi fan?”

Ryan grinned easily, taking note of how Shane’s gaze fell on his mouth and the revealed fangs. “Christopher Lee. Did you know he was 6’5?”

Shane eyed him askance. “I’m sensing a pattern. How did we get this far into a relationship before I found out about this?”

“What?” Ryan asked innocently, the banter finally making his tension fall away. “That maybe I have a thing for tall, lanky, white dudes who are into biting?”

“This is all beginning to make sense. Should I find a suit and slick back my hair?”

Ryan couldn’t deny that the idea had some appeal, but he didn’t want to give Shane too much ammunition. “And how would you know what he dressed like in those movies?”

“Are you kidding? I watched every single bad vampire picture that came out until I had to give up in the 80’s. Too many were being made.” Shane started to unbutton his shirt, which Ryan would have dismissed on any other day. They had lived so closely together in the last few months that any lingering shyness over getting undressed or free-ballin’ it in the apartment had long since disappeared. But unmaking the bed and getting naked both pointed to something that would make a mess. And he had a feeling he knew what Shane was attempting to do.

Ryan took a deep breath and crossed his arms over his chest. He didn’t want to be belligerent, but he wasn’t going to stand there and watch Shane obviously plan something stupid. “What are you doing?”

“Saving our sheets so we don’t have to wash as much.” Shane said simply.

It kind of sucked that the unthinking use of ‘our’ made Ryan’s heart melt. He scowled to hide the feeling. “Not unless you’re planning some very messy sex, stop it.”

“Well, actually-”

“Shane.”

Shane hesitated, then squared his shoulders, his open shirt framing his chest and stomach in a way that took away from his serious expression. “I guess I never really finished my thought. Basically, your body thinks the only way for you to get blood is to bite someone. Vampires didn’t have access to handy syringes and plastic bags a thousand years ago. You won’t be satisfied until you’ve physically bitten someone.”

Ryan’s eyebrows came together as he thought that over before exploding with, “What kind of bunk science-”

“Oh, you’re calling something bunk science? Mr. Spirit Box?”

“That sounds like complete and utter bullshit,” Ryan said, his mouth tugged down in a dismissive frown.

“Maybe. It does sound a little… “ Shane huffed out a sigh, wiggling his hand in a useless gesture and then running it through his hair absently. “Ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. But it’s the truth I’ve lived. The truth I’ve seen happen before. You think I wanted to go around biting people? 18-fucking-93? When you were considered clean if you had taken a bath in the past week? I had become a damned, undead creature that was afraid of garlic and religious symbols because I didn’t know any better.” He let out a self-deprecating little laugh. “Ryan, I stayed away from running water for two weeks after I turned because I thought I wouldn’t be able to cross it. I hid from the sun because I thought it would burn me.”

Ryan couldn’t help himself. “Well, I have seen how red you get if you’ve been outside for too long.”

Shane snorted. “I thought I would burst into flame. It took the woman who made me walking outside in only her shift to convince me. It got us kicked out her lodgings.” He shook his head, his quick smile falling. “The last thing I wanted to do was act like the monster I had become. And back then? It was bite or die. I’d go weeks sometimes. I nearly went feral.” The more he talked, the lower his voice became. “I-” He looked away, his fingers shaking as he went back to tugging at his hair.

God, Ryan hated seeing Shane like this. He couldn’t help but walk closer, gently resting his hand on Shane’s wrist, pulling his arm down. “Hey, hey, it’s alright.” Ryan knew exactly what Shane was trying to work up the courage to say and he didn’t need to hear it again. A secret that had been locked so far down inside Shane’s psyche that it was a surprise he had been able to admit to it. One that Ryan refused to look at too closely. “I know. It’s super shitty that you had to go through that.”

The week before Ryan had trooped into a private clinic and willingly swallowed Shane’s blood, Shane had come to him, shaking and scared. It had taken an agonizing amount of time for Shane to finally whisper, looking small and fragile, that he had once made a mistake. A fatal mistake. He had gone too long without blood and fed on a man until there had been no more blood left to drink.

It had been clear that Shane had expected Ryan to want nothing to do with him after that. That the story would finally scare Ryan away from his decision to become a vampire, and God knew that he had needed a couple of days to process the information. But the distraught, bitter, delicate way Shane had told him, the sheer guilt in his voice and the weary demeanor of someone opening the scab of an old, old wound had convinced Ryan that one mistake made before the turn of the 20th century wasn’t enough to change his opinion. Either about Shane or his decision.

Honestly, he had intentionally tried to forget about Shane’s greatest secret. He didn’t like to think about it and it wasn’t like Shane went around bringing it up. The law even covered Shane, if the truth ever got out there. Vampires turned before ‘79 were given a kind of blanket forgiveness for any illegal acts they had committed before the bill recognizing them as alive came into place. It had been an incredibly controversial law, but it still held up.

The fact that Shane would use his mistake as an argument to make Ryan give in said a lot about how serious he was about the whole biting thing.

"So maybe you can see why I don't want you to go through that kind of shit. Practice now, while we're legal and while you're new enough that you'll be forgiven if you suck at it."

Ryan pushed his tongue against the back of his teeth, tracing the points of his own fangs. He sighed, anxiety and nerves and something like relief twisting in his stomach when he said, completely truthfully, “Okay.” He leaned his head against Shane’s shoulder, a weight lifting off of him that left him feeling untethered. “I’ll do it, alright? Today, you big idiot. You win.”

“Thank God, you stubborn jackass,” Shane whispered against his hair. “I was about to do something dramatic.”

“I know,” Ryan replied, carefully ignoring the sick excitement that was growing in the back of his mind. “You’re not exactly subtle.”

“Subtle is for chumps.”

“Mhmm,” Ryan sighed and paused for a moment to think about his options. “So who should I ask? I can’t ask any of my roommates or family because _no_ , but maybe Sara? She doesn’t seem to mind that I’m a vampire.”

Shane growled at him.

Ryan blinked. “Uh…”

Shane very slowly covered his own face with his hand, trying to hide his embarrassed expression. “Ignore that.”

“What the hell, man?” Ryan asked, grinning in delight at Shane’s response. The swift change from heavy emotion to giddy humor was heady. “Are you _jealous_?”

“No.”

At Ryan’s rude snort of laughter, Shane rolled his eyes. He looked equally relieved that they were back to joking around. “Maybe. Yes. I think I know you don’t see her as just food, and I kind of- Yeah, so, maybe you just go ahead and bite me and stop laughing at me. Fulfill your Dracula fantasies.”

Ryan leaned back to stare at Shane for a long moment, studying the man who he had fallen in love with. The man who had turned him into a vampire and even now he didn’t regret that it had happened. Shane was looking back at him with an uncertain smile, the teasing edge unable to mask the nerves, as if he thought Ryan would change his mind all over again.

He knew Shane liked to be bitten. That had been well-established. And he knew he wanted to do it. Fuck, he had wanted to do it from day one.

And.

Well.

 _Fuck it_.

Before Shane could react, using some of the vampiric speed that he still didn’t really have a hang of, Ryan moved. His mouth collided with the collar of Shane’s shirt, the points of two fangs ripping fabric.

Both of them jerked back, Shane laughing and Ryan groaning, but before he could try to apologize or swear, the shirt was on the floor and Shane was guiding him back towards his neck. “A+ for enthusiasm, but you really have to work on your aim-” Shane’s breath stopped in his throat, the word trailing off in a peculiar, hitched moan.

Ryan froze. At first all he was aware of was the expanse of skin under his open mouth, the odd feeling of his teeth being stuck in something. Then he realized what had happened.

It was kissing someone for the first time, having sex for the first time, fucking getting on a roller coaster for the first time. The first few seconds were more about the sheer astonishment of having actually done it than the act itself. It was the exultant, fearful, triumphant thought; _I did it. I’m kissing her, I'm tasting her, I’m inside him, I’m biting him, I finally did it_.

Saliva pooled against the stretch of his lower lip and he shifted his jaw, vaguely embarrassed by the idea of drooling. Skin tore around his fangs as he moved and blood _gushed_ , streaming into his mouth in a hot rush. He swallowed convulsively, the flavor, the texture, the warmth hitting him like a strike of lightning.

It was so much better than the blood from the bags.

Shane laughed quietly, discomfort coloring the sound, but he seemed almost proud as he teasingly said, “And you need to get better at not ripping into your prey.” He sighed, his breath brushing past Ryan’s ear, and corrected himself. “The person feeding you.”

Ryan could feel the vibrations as Shane spoke and it made him want to drag his teeth farther up, to burrow into the veins near the vocal cords and taste each word as they spilled hot into his mouth, but he was loathe to leave the source of blood that he was already latched onto. The wounds were quickly healing and he worried at them like a dog, needing them larger, needing more blood.

“Ah,” Shane cried; a short, quick hiccup of surprised pain. "Fuck, Ryan, stop."

The person in his arms was moving too much and Ryan tightened his grip, muscles bunching as he crushed them closer, keeping them still so that he could focus on sating the ever present emptiness in his body.

Long fingers buried in his hair, strength equal to his own tugging enough to garner a flicker of attention. “You’re hurting me, you need to stop.”

Physical pain lined his bones as he fought to pause, to stop the frantic swallows and pull his teeth from the dripping holes. But the genuine hitch of pain in Shane’s voice tilted the overwhelming hunger into distant concern. Shane’s breath hissed out in a long exhale, the straining tendons in his neck and shoulder relaxing as he stopped fighting so hard to keep still.

Ryan held his teeth against Shane’s flesh but did not bite, mapping each shift of muscle with his lips as Shane moved, settling himself. He felt poised, ready to pounce at any moment, the entirety of his being focused on the strong, faster than normal pound of Shane’s heart and the blood that rushed through him, separated by the scant barrier of skin.

“Okay,” Shane said softly, his hold on Ryan’s hair turning into a caress. “Again. Not so hard.”

The words were barely out of Shane’s mouth before Ryan bit down again, this time more aware of the action. The feeling of flesh parting under his fangs was indescribable, a visceral satisfaction that briefly, for one instant, quieted the ever present craving. An urge to jerk his head to the side and tear into Shane’s veins surged up in him, but he stamped that thought down and merely pulled his teeth out, greedily swallowing the fresh welling of blood.

Shane took a short step backward, slow enough that Ryan could follow without breaking contact, tethered to the liquid taste of salt and hot metal. Gently, so gradually that Ryan took no notice of what was going on, Shane cajoled him toward the bed, until Shane was able to perch on the edge. Ryan straddled his legs without pause, more than willing to accept the change in position.

“That’s enough, little guy,” Shane murmured. “If I was human, you’d need to stop now. Any more and I’d have to worry about passing out.”

The words meant nothing, but Ryan lifted his mouth from Shane’s skin, watching blood trickle down a pale collarbone for a bare second before lowering his head to lap at the bright red liquid, chasing the tang of salt with the flat of his tongue. It wasn’t as good as the hot gush from the puncture wounds had been, but it was enough to take the edge off the persistent craving.

He was starting to notice that the blood tasted slightly off. Wrong somehow. It wasn’t wrong enough to quiet the need for more, but there was a curious flatness to the taste. Almost like it was stale.

His curiosity over the flavor and the realization that it was because he was drinking from a vampire let him pull back, to look into Shane’s eyes and remember that he was more than hunger and thirst. Shane smiled at him fondly, like he hadn’t just ripped into his skin. “Hey. C’mon, let’s-” He fell back on the bed, urging Ryan to follow him down.

It was imperative that Ryan lick up the blood trailing towards the mattress before it could stain anything. It would be such a waste, otherwise.

Ryan’s fangs ached and he knew the only way he could soothe the pain was to bite down again. To feel the flesh part and hear that break of breath. It hurt to keep his attention limited to the smears and trickles of blood that painted Shane’s chest, his throat parched even as he swallowed, but he knew that if he was good, he could have more.

Laughter rumbled under his lips as Shane stretched, arching his torso up against Ryan’s body, for all the world like a hedonist in the middle of something decadently sinful. “See?” He asked rhetorically, his voice quiet and unmistakably proud. “Nothing to worry about it.”

“I want more,” Ryan managed to say thickly, muffled against the meat of Shane’s shoulder.

“I know,” Shane soothed. “Luckily for you, I can give up a little bit more than your average ol’ human.”

Ryan didn’t mean to whine, but he was desperate for it. The urgency had lessened but was by no means gone. “Please?”

Shane slipped his hands under Ryan’s shirt, smoothing his fingers across the wings of Ryan’s shoulders. “Go for it.”

And this time, God, this time Ryan could finally notice the way Shane shivered against him as he sunk his fangs into a new spot, jaw stretched wide to accommodate the new angle. He could hear the way Shane swallowed, the rhythm of his pulse beating wildly in his mouth, the tiny, tiny moan that had nothing to do with pain.

He sucked, coaxing more blood to the surface, and Shane let out a shaky, weak laugh, rolling his hips up against Ryan like he couldn’t help it. “Fuck, you’re so good,” he rambled, clutching harder at Ryan’s back. “Just like that.”

The husky timbre to his voice did something to Ryan. He wasn’t hard, not really, but he was always interested in helping out Shane. Such clear need reminded him that the least he could do was give Shane something in return. It was hard to maneuver himself without leaving Shane’s neck, but he managed eventually, sliding to the side so that he could wiggle his hand down Shane’s pants, too preoccupied to bother with buttons.

It was an awkward grip, but Shane was so hard and leaking wet that he ignored the strain to his wrist. Shane didn’t seem to mind the situation either, blinded to the fact that he could have easily gotten his pants off himself, nearly frantic as he whined at the feeling of Ryan’s fingers.

Ryan had time for one more swallow of salt and life, then Shane was pushing at his shoulders, muttering, “Let me see you, let me, please.”

He braced his free hand on the mattress and pushed up, hovering far enough above Shane for the man to get a good look. Judging by the blood he could feel dripping down his chin to splatter onto Shane’s chest, he was quite a sight. There was a wide-eyed, breathless moment where Shane studied him, his expression that of someone seeing a miracle being performed.

His words were slurred and most of him wanted to go right back to licking at the addictive ambrosia that was painted across Shane’s shoulder, but it didn’t take much coherency to know he also wanted to be a dick. “See something you like?” he asked with a wide, teasing grin, fangs catching on his bottom lip.

Shane surged up, his hand cupped around the back Ryan’s skull to pull him closer, taking him by surprise as their mouths crashed together. It was inevitable that their fangs would nick each other and Ryan froze at the first feeling of his lip splitting under Shane’s teeth, remembering the horrible outcome of the last time they had kissed like this. But Shane didn’t give him time to overthink or react.

There was a swipe of Shane’s tongue across the front of his teeth and then Shane was pulling back and biting _him_ , the usual flare of pain and endorphins rising up to swamp Ryan in too many feelings at once.

He might have passed out for a moment, the twin sensations of Shane’s blood coating his throat and his own blood being pulled from his shoulder more than he could handle. The intensity of everything happening overcame him, his vision blacking out.

For an infinite moment, he drifted, without thirst or hunger to pull him down.

When Ryan blinked open his eyes, he was bemused to find that he was laying on his side, tired and sated in a way he only associated with a really good orgasm.

He was also _sticky_.

Shane laughed at him when he grimaced down at his come-covered fingers, more concerned by that than the flaking blood. The laugh brought his attention to the disgustingly fond look his boyfriend was giving him. “Laugh it up,” he rasped tiredly, the lingering flavor of Shane’s blood still in his mouth. “You’re the one that’s so easy you more or less came from humping my hand.”

With an unconcerned shrug, Shane leaned across the space that separated them and kissed the tip of his nose. “I’ve been fantasizing about this for a long time, Ry-Guy ,” he said easily. “Give it a few years and you’ll start putting blood and sex together, too.”

Ryan wrinkled his nose, both from the sensation of the kiss and the faint disgust. “I kind of already do and I don’t know what that says about me or vampires in general. Like getting horny because you went to the mall food court.”

Shane snorted and scooted closer, completely ignoring the blood and other fluids to wrap one arm around Ryan’s waist. It was so pleasant to be pulled into an impromptu snuggling session that Ryan let himself drift into a light doze, enjoying the strange feeling of his hunger being completely satisfied.

After an indeterminate amount of time, Shane began to lightly stroke his fingers across Ryan’s back. “It wasn’t that bad, right?” he asked, a curious mix of smug and tentative.

Ryan peered at him sleepily. He could tell that Shane wanted to gloat but was worried that doing something so very _vampiric_ would have scared Ryan. And while there was a small part of him freaking out over how much blood he had taken from Shane, he was comforted to know that he had stopped every time Shane had asked. He hadn’t wanted to, but he had done it anyway.

Maybe he really could control this hunger. Maybe he didn’t need to stick to the bagged stuff.

“Eh,” he said, drawing out the syllable. “It didn’t suck.”

Shane blinked at him, then started chuckling, shaking his head as he leaned forward to kiss him properly. “I can’t believe I’ve tied myself to someone that makes dad puns.”

“I love you too, big guy,” Ryan grinned. “But I don’t love your jizz, so let me go wash my hand.”

The wheezing laugh that followed him as he headed into the bathroom reaffirmed everything Ryan had already known.

He would have made the decision to become a vampire a hundred times over, without a single regret, if it meant he got to stay with Shane.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah yes, I heard y'all wanted some self-indulgent vampire angst and tropes? Right? ....Right? 
> 
> Thank you all so much for the patience and the love! It means so much to me and helps immensely with the motivation :P


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A small epilogue.

It was already dark by the time Ryan made it to their apartment, though he wasn’t sure if that was from the time of year or the constant clouds. Ten years of living in Portland and he still wasn’t used to the sheer amount of rain that fell in the area. Could take the boy out of SoCal but couldn’t take the SoCal out of the boy, it seemed. 

He locked the door behind him, wiping water out of his hair as he called out for Shane, grimacing at the puddle that was already forming on the floor. His jacket was hung up, but his shoes were carried with him to the bathroom sink. If he left those on the floor, it’d ruin the wood. He really should have known better than to wear his dress shoes to his meeting. 

The sounds of Shane doing something in the kitchen drew him to the room after he was done with his shoes. Ryan was a little surprised that Shane hadn’t said anything yet, but the guy had been absent-minded lately. He was thinking of taking a vacation just to get Shane somewhere new and interesting for awhile, to see if that would help. 

“Shane?” he asked as he walked into the kitchen. 

Then he paused, surprised by the sight in front of him. 

Shane didn’t look up, but he did ask “Słucham?” in a distracted voice, most of his attention on the washrag he was running up his arms. 

Ryan stared for a long moment, incredibly confused. Even after all this time, he still found Shane to be a very attractive sight while shirtless. He could appreciate the way water was dripping down Shane’s ribs and the glistening sheen the kitchen lights gave his skin. But why the hell was he shirtless and washing in the kitchen?

“Uh, Shane? What are you doing?”

Shane finally looked up and blinked at him. He said something in Polish, sounding equally confused, then gestured with the rag like Ryan was being dumb. 

An uncomfortable feeling settled low in Ryan’s stomach. A nameless dread that wasn’t actually nameless, but he didn’t like admitting that he knew what the problem was. He swallowed and tentatively said, “Babe? Can’t understand you.” After living with Shane and his aggressive re-learning of his first language for a few decades, Ryan had almost gotten to where he could understand it about as well as he understood Spanish. But not like this. Not when Shane was talking so fast and casually.

There was a second of hesitation, then Shane huffed a laugh that didn’t hide the uneasy look in his eyes. “Sorry. I said I wanted to get clean. Hence the cleaning.”

Ryan let out a long, slow breath. This was the third time in the past month that something like this had happened. “In the kitchen?”

“Uh, yeah?” Shane rolled his eyes and went back to rubbing the rag under his arms. “I was thinking we should call Lena.”

It physically hurt to say, as gently as he could, “Lena died, Shane.”

“Oh. Right.” Shane shook his head. “I meant, uh, her granddaughter. Olivia?”

“She died five years ago.” Ryan walked forward slowly, trying to keep the fear off his face. “Shane? It’s not 1860. We have a shower.”

Shane’s face twisted, confusion, fear, then resigned understanding passing over his features in a cascade of emotion. “Kurwa,” he swore under his breath, setting the rag down. “It’s 2079, isn’t it?”

Ryan hated how carefully he asked the question, as if he wasn’t entirely sure. “Yeah. ‘79.”

Nodding, Shane pursed his lips together, a thin line to try and hold back whatever he was feeling. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I...I didn’-”

“It’s okay,” Ryan interrupted, pulling Shane forward into a hug, not caring in the slightest about the still wet skin making his shirt sleeves damp. “You’re not even four hundred yet, big guy. You’re too young to be doing this.”

He felt the puff of air stir his hair as Shane let out a thin, pained laugh over his shoulder. “Sometimes I feel that old.”

Ryan stayed quiet for a few minutes, trying to offer what comfort he could as his mind raced. After a certain age, vampires had a tendency to go one of two ways. Feral, which would never be Shane’s problem, despite his worries- though Ryan privately suspected that he would need to be careful to keep that from happening to himself in a couple hundred years- or they began to lose themselves in memory. No one was sure yet if it was a form a dementia or if the brain couldn’t handle the sheer amount of information that came from living for centuries. Few of the oldest vampires trusted doctors enough to go in for testing. 

But Shane wasn’t yet at the age where the signs started. Something was wrong.

“I think we should move.”

Shane pulled back, his eyebrows furrowed. “But you like your job. You like Portland.”

“I do,” Ryan said. “I love you more. Since no one will hire you for more than a two month contract, maybe we need to get out of this area.”

Mouth twisting, Shane looked away but didn’t say anything. It wasn’t the first time they had had this discussion that was nearly an argument. Shane wanted to stay because Ryan was happy there, far from anything that reminded him of his Cali friends and family that had passed away. Ryan wanted to leave because watching Shane mope around with nothing to do was like watching a sad, old dog on its last leg. 

They had moved because of an amazing opportunity for Ryan that involved directing for an internet streaming service. It was very nearly a dream come true. They had assumed Shane would have been able to pick up a job without a problem, but for whatever reason, no one would hire him permanently. It had left him with a lot of free time on his hands. It had been fine at first, as Shane had been able to tackle a few projects that he had always wanted to try. But after a few years, the inspiration had dried up and he had been left drifting and aimless. 

In hindsight, no wonder his mind had started to go. 

Letting their foreheads rest together, Shane sighed. “I’ll look harder. I’ll accept a lower salary.”

“Come on, don’t sell yourself short just so I can stay-”

Shane brushed his thumb over Ryan’s neck, right where his heartbeat could be felt, slow and strong.It was nearly a ritualistic move by this point. A touchstone between the two of them, when they needed comfort. “Let’s give it another year. I’ll find something to get my ol’ noggin going again.”

Ryan slid his fingers up Shane’s back, rearranging them just enough that they could more comfortably hold each other. “Maybe we should go back to LA, anyways. I should be there for Jake and his family. He’s not getting any younger.”

“Jake is more spry than most people half his age,” Shane said, laughing quietly. “Don’t make up excuses just because I’m more likely to get a gig in LA.” 

Ryan wanted to keep his mouth shut, but he had never been very good at being quiet where his loved ones were concerned. “I don’t like seeing you lose time like that.”

“Try living it,” Shane muttered. “Another year. I could take a class or two at PSU and we’ll see if that helps. And after that, if I’m still- If… I’ll trust your judgement. Okay?”

Ryan nodded against Shane’s neck. And quietly started thinking of ways to get him hired somewhere. Somewhere that would keep him interested and engaged. 

He hadn’t even had sixty years with Shane yet. He planned for centuries more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't originally going to post this semi-bleak, melancholy look into the future, but some people convinced me. Blame them. 
> 
> Thank you so much for all the love that the world of Heartbeat has gotten. I currently have no more plans for this universe, but I am lightly obsessed with vampires, so who knows what the future holds!
> 
> And thank you Emilia for [this!](https://mephsation.tumblr.com/post/187693729291/hey-soft-cryptids-thanks-for-pointy-teeth-you) You're the best.
> 
> If you want to talk about vampires or Heartbeat, throw me a message at [Mephsation](http://mephsation.tumblr.com).


End file.
